Journalist Andrei Zakharov found this out by contacting a source who has access to the IBD-F database (where this information is reflected). Zakharov asked to check two prisoners who were caught on video with Prigozhin: one was imprisoned for murder, the second for robbery. It turned out that both were pardoned “by presidential decree” of July 6, 2022. This decree is not available in open sources.
“Vladimir Putin pardoned him for his willingness to go and kill his neighbors for the sake of goals that even the one who started this war cannot clearly articulate,” writes Zakharov about one of the prisoners.
Putin will personally pardon murderers and thieves so that they go to war. This is known for sure.
The main mystery of the recruitment of prisoners in PMC “Wagner” was how their release is legally formalized. If the word “mystery” is applicable to a system that exists in parallel with the criminal article for mercenarism.
It was clear that the only legal way to release a rapist, a murderer or a thief who had been condemned firmly for a long time was a presidential pardon. My former BBC colleagues explained it well . But the authorities did not want to confirm this.
“I can say that the pardon is carried out in strict accordance with the law,” Peskov traditionally ran away from the answer when he was once again asked if Putin really pardoned the recruited prisoners.
But, as they say in one famous film, “what two people know, the pig knows.” There is such a police base – IBD-F. It contains information about what crimes a person committed, when he was convicted, where he served his sentence, and when he was released.
I asked a person with access to IBD-F to check a couple of prisoners who appeared on the video with Prigogine as an example of the Wagner social elevator: the day before yesterday in prison – yesterday at the front – today free. One is a murderer, the other, speaking in pre-revolutionary language, is a robber.
Both have the same note in the IBD-F: “Released from further serving a sentence on the basis of the Presidential Decree “On Pardon”.”
The date of the decree is July 6, 2022. It is, of course, not in open registers: the next published decrees are dated July 5 and 8, and between them, judging by the numbers, there are five unpublished decrees.
The pardon decree of July 6 is, of course, not the only one. Prigozhin, recruiting convicts, promises them a pardon in six months (although legally it seems to be formalized before they are sent to the front). One of those whom I asked to see, ended up in civilian life ahead of schedule in the fall, as his leg was torn off during the war. Another appeared on a Prigozhin media video in early January, just six months after Vladimir Putin pardoned him for his willingness to go and kill his neighbors for goals that even the one who started this war cannot clearly articulate.
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